


giant proclamations (our love is louder than words)

by adreamaloud, daneorange (adreamaloud)



Category: Skins (UK)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-07
Updated: 2009-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-18 18:20:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/adreamaloud, https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/daneorange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the wreckage of the party clears, the first thing Naomi sees is Emily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	giant proclamations (our love is louder than words)

_i love you in the morning / when you’re hung over. –bloc party, ‘Sunday’_

When the wreckage of the party clears, the first thing Naomi sees is Emily stirring awake on the sofa at the far end of the room.

Naomi counts the bottles between them (five, if you count the one Emily is holding) as she tries to get up from being too comfortably slumped in one of them smaller couches, acutely aware of her untended cigarette burning closer and closer to her fingers.

It hasn’t been one of her favorite things to do, staring at Emily Fitch – after all, Naomi barely knew the girl, much less have something like fond conversation with her. They just happen to be two people wandering in the same circles that keep getting smaller and smaller, and now, here they are, only a Persian rug’s length apart and Naomi, of all things, is staring.

But then, it could be the alcohol. Naomi stands up, dropping her cigarette butt into one of the bottles as she staggers out, as carefully as a person containing as much alcohol could manage. The party is dead, she tells herself, and now is as good time as any to bail.

Naomi hears her name as she is walking out to the front lawn, stepping over a bottle she almost does not see. When she turns around, it’s Emily Fitch coming after her, in several unsteady steps. “Hey, Naomi.”

Naomi tries not to raise a brow and fails. “What?”

Emily just stares at her, stopping by the porch steps, leaning by the post. And then, she laughs – a deep, throaty sound that comes out hoarse. Naomi rubs a palm against her arm; she nearly feels the coarseness of it right against her skin.

“You’re drunk,” Naomi says, rolling her eyes and turning around. “And I’m going home.”

And because Naomi is unusually perceptive when under the influence, she knows that Emily is in fact following, walking after her still with those uncertain legs. “You know,” Naomi begins, not turning around, still walking on, “You should go find Katie and head on home yourself.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” asks Emily, and when it doesn’t stop Naomi, she says, “Oh come on now.” Emily stops walking, breathing in deep. “Stay for… for a…”

When Naomi turns around, Emily is sitting on the grass. She looks up with a huge grin on her face.

Despite herself, Naomi sits with her. “Just for a while,” she’s saying, but she’s taking out a cigarette anyway.

They say nothing, mostly. Naomi asks about school, which is the easiest thing to talk about, and Emily answers in short, non-sequitur phrases that, for the most part, succeed in making Naomi giggle, at least. “Blimey, you *are* fucking smashed, aren’t you?” asks Naomi, somewhere between talk about Biology and History.

Emily is leaning back on both her elbows. “Give me a sec,” she says, “I’m coming around. Really.”

And so Naomi does as she is told, fishing out another cigarette and lighting it, shrugging slightly. After a while, Emily motions for a hit, and Naomi leans in to hand it to her between two fingers.

“That’s better,” says Emily as she exhales, craning her neck to blow upwards. Naomi finds herself staring at Emily’s jaw line, at how the sweat clings to her skin, and suddenly Naomi is acutely aware of how Emily’s lips had been so close to her fingertips just a few seconds before.

Naomi tells herself, more firmly this time: It ought to be the alcohol.

“I swear, somewhere, Katie is getting shagged,” Emily begins to say, lying right back on the ground. “I can feel it.”

Naomi feels her mouth go dry at the word. “What makes you so sure?” she tries asking, an attempt at diversion.

“I just do.” Emily closes her eyes even. “It’s a twin thing. Or something.”

Or something. Naomi swallows hard, saying nothing in response. She tries to look away, but then again, under the influence, Naomi finds herself to be unabashed with her attentions, and now she is noting how Emily is breathing. Emily, in fact, is breathing very slowly, judging by the steady rise and fall of her chest. By now Naomi’s eyes are strangely fixated at how the top button of Emily’s blouse is undone.

“Well,” Emily begins to speak again, eyes still closed. “Are you going to just sit there?”

Naomi could have said, ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ Or she could have said, ‘Yes, I’m going to just sit here and stare at you.’ She could very well have said anything – actually, she should have, instead of choosing to remain mute and unmoving, especially since the whole non-response just makes Emily push herself up from the ground and kiss Naomi herself.

(“For such a headstrong girl,” Emily says after, her lips still so close. “You seem to lack some sort of initiative.”)

*

The next time they see each other, it’s in a crowded underground party, and the lights are blinking maddeningly throughout, without pause, and everybody looks like they are moving in slow staggered motion. The whole mess of it makes Naomi’s head throb.

When she sees Emily, she is coming out of the ladies room. Naomi is waiting right outside the door, and in the erratic lighting, she does not see much of Emily, other than the striking shade of her hair. Naomi says, “Oh,” and then, “Hi,” and then a sort of silence that is only possible in moments like this, when the awkwardness drowns out even the loudest music, follows.

Emily stands there, five, maybe fifteen, solid seconds before she comes out with, “Hey,” back, and then, tucking her hair behind her ear, she adds, “You came.”

“Not like there’s anything better to do on a night like this, eh?” Naomi says, and suddenly, the urge to use the ladies room is gone. She motions to the dance floor with a nod and says, “Kind of congested, this hallway, yeah?” Emily nods in turn, moving, trailing her hand behind her, wiggling her fingers lightly, as if saying, Come now.

When Naomi slips her hand into Emily’s, there’s a sort of tingle she couldn’t place.

*

Somewhere in between the alcohol and the drugs and the strobe lights, Emily leans in to whisper, “Do you remember?”

Naomi swallows slightly, tries not to be transparent. “Remember what?”

“That night, when I kissed you.”

Naomi looks at her again, trying to look nonplussed. “It’s okay, it was nothing,” she’s saying. She’s beating Emily to it, pre-empting her apology, the line that starts with, ‘I know I shouldn’t have.’ Or, ‘I’m sorry I was so smashed.’

In fact she was waiting for Emily’s casual smile, for that breath of relief, for something that would sound something like, ‘Great, I’m glad we could put that behind us now,’ when Emily responds with, “It was?” instead, her face somewhat paler, a hint of heartbreak in her tone.

Naomi’s look softens, “Look,” she begins, but then, what is she supposed to say, anyway? “It was nice, but.” But. It’s too late to take it back, Naomi realizes, as Emily disentangles from the comfortable human pretzel they had been making on an isolated couch in one corner. “Emily,” she’s saying again instead.

“It was nice, but?”

But what? “I don’t know,” Naomi says. “Maybe we were not ourselves.”

It’s the last time Naomi would be close to Emily that night, as Emily moves away and strays into the dance floor. Naomi stays seated on the couch, now too wide for one. Naomi watches as Emily picks up another beer, as Emily chats up another blonde girl from school, as she squeezes in between JJ and Cook as the crowd goes wild when the band comes on. Naomi watches closer when Emily starts to dance, lasting only up until the moment Cook starts touching her – at which point Naomi feels a tad bit sick, as if there is something blocking her throat.

She’s on her way out of the party when she bumps into Katie. “Maybe you should take Emily home,” she just says, off Katie’s sneer. They say nothing more. Naomi tries to walk straight home without crying but breaks down by the bend anyway.

*

The next time they meet, Naomi is clandestinely smoking in the school parking lot. Emily catches her gaze first, before diverting; next thing Naomi knows, Emily is leaning against the railing beside her, taking a hit herself.

Breathing in, Naomi just says, “So, you with Cook or JJ now?”

To which Emily says, exhaling smoke suddenly, “What?”

“I saw you. At the party. Their hands were all over you.”

Emily pauses at that, still not looking Naomi’s way, taking a long drag. “So?” she says, exhaling thin wispy smoke through puckered lips.

For her part, Naomi tries not to stare – and she has to try really hard. Emily is wearing a familiar shade of lipstick, after all, and it is giving Naomi certain unnecessary bodily reactions. “What sort of girl says, ‘So?’ to a thing like that?” she asks back, unable to hold her frustration.

“What kind of girl says ‘it’s nice, but’? It’s a kiss, for fuck’s sake.” Naomi tries not to flinch at the way Emily says that word, ‘Fuck’, the way it feels like it’s grating against the skin of her neck, the way her voice breaks just *so* at the right juncture.

“What did you expect me to say?”

Emily finishes her cigarette. “I don’t know, maybe,” she pauses, dropping the butt on the floor and stubbing it out. “That you liked it, period? That you didn’t, period? I don’t know, just something more categorical?”

Categorical, Naomi thinks, turning the word over and over in her head. “I liked it, actually,” she says. “Period?”

When Naomi looks at Emily, she is already chewing at her lower lip, obviously restraining a smile. “There’s a good start,” says Emily. And then, “Well, if you liked it, would you like to do it again, then?”

*

Naomi tries to keep things under control. It’s essential to who she is, this desire to hold things together, and firmly. To have a lid on things. To have a grip on everything.

But then, all Emily has to do is stray – into an empty room, in a deserted hallway, in a corner that nobody notices – and Naomi is there, pressing her lips against Emily’s, her hands fumbling inside Emily’s shirt. Naomi does not like the way she is continually disarmed – it could be something as benign as a smile, a slight nod that says, Bathroom, now. Emily may or may not have intended the gestures to carry such meanings, but Naomi bestows them anyway, as she follows Emily into the ladies room in the middle of an Algebra exam, or right before lunch time ends.

Naomi does not like being disarmed, not at all, but it’s not like she could resist the opportunity to hear Emily making those sounds, to feel her moving this way. Not at all.

*

When summer comes, suddenly it is so easy. Emily comes over for breakfast often, and then.

“Did you want to go to that ball thing at the end of last semester?” Emily asks, once.

Naomi tries not to think about the many ways she had phrased her refusal in her head; for a while she had become convinced Emily would ask, at some point. Only she didn’t, and Naomi had to contend with the disappointment, somewhat, for a few days.

“Hello?” Emily asks again, waving her hand in front of Naomi’s face.

Naomi blinks. “No, not at all,” she says. “God knows what could have happened.”

Eventually, Emily comes around to saying, “I wanted to ask you, actually. But then, you weren’t into that sort of thing, yeah?”

Despite herself, Naomi thinks about her dress, the possibility of Emily being in a dress as well, and the prospect of undressing slowly, after. Naomi swallows before saying, “That would have been ridiculous.”

*

They spend that summer mostly smashed and stoned, as expected, as it was the only way the sex comes about without the complications of the sober mind.

Once, after, Emily turns to Naomi, saying, “You think this would be okay any other way?”

Naomi thinks for a while, considers saying yes, but then, at the last minute, she settles for, “I don’t fucking know.”

*

In the mornings, when she wakes up, Naomi finds them in a tangle – her hand on Emily’s hip, her nose buried in Emily’s hair, still smelling of the shampoo of the morning before albeit mixed with the odor of stale cigarette smoke. Once, upon waking to the feeling of Emily’s hand on her chest, Naomi could not help but ask herself: How could she still be uncertain, up to now?

*

One afternoon, Naomi calls Emily, saying, “Have you taken your bike anywhere, lately?”

On her way to meet Emily on the corner of their street, Naomi tells herself, this time there would be nothing in between. From afar, she sees Emily walking over, bike in tow. Naomi thinks to herself, This time, it would be proper.

When Emily comes face-to-face with Naomi, she gives off this smile so loud, Naomi almost hears it.

Naomi breathes in deep, and then. #

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Bloc Party, “Sunday.” Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain own everything and I’m just borrowing, promise to return unharmed. No copyright infringement intended.


End file.
